I found this on transairn's LJ. What do you think???Here's a page about the creator of this, huh, performance? I must admit I was half shocked, half intrigued, and half uncomfortable. Okay, that's three halves. I must be genetically modified ROTFLMAO

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Reading the GenPet description, I started to think that under other circumstances (no impending alien invasion), this is something Roush or the Consortium might have tried to market.

Though I understand the artist's position, and what he's trying to say about life being conveniently commodified. If he gets some people to think more deeply about current society, that's probably a good thing.

He got exactly what he wishes with me... I was between believing and rejecting. And at the same time wondering about my reaction. Then I found more info (I looked for "GenPets" in Google), read the article, which echoed my second reaction ("this must be an art performance").

I had an eye on the site of the artist himself (Adam Brandejs), who's a young and very talented Canadian, specialized in animatronic and FX. He says that when exposed (in real stores), his "GenPets" induced strong and most interesting answers. Usually parents were shocked but children were loudly asking for a living pet...

His explanations made me think about my own answer. Yes, I almost believed - in half a century I've seen a lot of techniques go forth, and many times amok. I was parted between rejection - giving living engineered "things" for sale, having them with a determined lifespan (like Blade Runner's androids) - and attraction (something so unusual, and it could be "mine"?) Well, am I the humanist I thought I was?This provocation is definitely a good thing in my view, as it questions our personal attitude towards life, biasing Nature, selling (and buying) almost anything. Yes, this is Iron Age, the 4th and lower kalpa.

I just regret I "gave up" the solution at once - because it deprived potential readers of this reflexion on self I went through.

Two examples (in my RL):

- Some 20 years ago, when VHS was the hit, Philips tried a new format: their tapes could be used on both side (like audio-tapes). The TV commercials showed a VHS player with the tape getting out, turning upside-down and re-entering the device. My boss' mother was persuaded this player *really* worked that way, I mean, the tape was leaving, turning and coming back by itself... We had a hard time convincing her this was NOT possible, a plastic box couldn't sustain itself in thin air! Now this dear old lady was no fool, she was an experimented accountant with a good IQ and born a peasant, with a strong common sense. But along her life she had seen so many incredible things that she started to believe what she saw on TV. "Why not?"

- A few years ago, my best friend Isabelle told me about a weird adventure. Doing errands in a superstore, she saw packages of chicken. Inside there was a chicken with four legs... She thought, "Well, they must have created genetic mutant, not a bad idea, people eat more legs than wings here..." Then suddenly she realized the concept was crazy, and looking further, she saw it was just one very normal chicken, they just had added a couple of legs as a bonus in the package! But she felt troubled to have been able to think, even for a few minutes, that such a monstrosity could be done and offered for sale. She has a very high IQ and a scientific mind, believe me, and she's 56. It's just, as I said, we've seen so many things happen in half a century...